


Even My Phone Misses Your Call

by rainbowninja167



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Civil War Fix-It, M/M, Steve Rogers is a Troublemaker, Tony Stark is doing his best, happy ending guaranteed, now with jokes!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 01:13:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14225889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowninja167/pseuds/rainbowninja167
Summary: Steve makes it all the way to Ohio before conceding that the post-Chitauri road trip might’ve been a mistake.Or, ten times Steve has to call Tony to come pick him up.





	Even My Phone Misses Your Call

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in the MCU fandom, and I'm very excited to share it before Infinity War devastates us all...
> 
> Title is from Harry Styles' "From the Dining Table."

1.

Steve makes it all the way to Ohio before conceding that the post-Chitauri road trip might’ve been a mistake.

In his defense, it's hard to maintain enthusiasm for the interstate highway system from the side of the Ohio Turnpike, with a motorcycle that started hissing angrily at 70 mph and now sits beside him, releasing gentle clouds of smoke into the twilight air.

The cars that thunder past are starting to flick on their lights, and Steve idly counts them, just for something to do. And then he realizes with an odd jolt that it might be the first truly _idle_ thing he’s done since he came out of the ice. Even in the SHIELD cabin -- where he’d been sent immediately upon waking in some misguided attempt to enforce tranquility -- Steve had committed himself to accomplishing small tasks of acculturation. He’d watched television, examined the laptop they’d given him, done more push-ups than was perhaps sane, and taken endless walks around the cabin’s perimeter. He hadn’t meant it as repression, but he supposes in retrospect, that’s what it had been. The dogged forward-march of a soldier. Anything to avoid the feeling – both the certainty and the terror – that this is what the rest of his life had become.

But if there’s one thing that sitting on a concrete divider halfway between Sandusky and Toledo is good for, it’s confronting how completely and utterly alone you are in the universe.

Steve’s not even sure what to do next. How do you summon help for a possibly-on-fire motorcycle in this century? He may have navigated the forests of Italy without a second thought, but it had never felt as much like hostile territory as his single foray into a rest stop Panera.

He counts seventeen more cars before he remembers the cell phone that Tony Stark had forced on him before he’d left New York. He’s still not entirely sure how it works, but he does remember his lesson on finding his “Contacts.” There are only two entries programmed into the phone: Tony and Maria Hill.

Steve strongly considers ditching the motorcycle and walking back to Manhattan.

“If it isn’t Jack Kerouac!” comes a voice that Steve had _desperately_ hoped to avoid hearing for at least another month. It sounds like Tony’s in the middle of a party, something electronic thumping through the phone. Steve winces.

“Sorry. Is this a bad time?”

“Never for you, O Captain, My Captain,” Tony replies. Steve’s familiar with the Whitman poem, although something about Tony’s inflection suggests there’s a contemporary nuance he’s still missing. “What’s up?”

“I might…” Steve takes a breath. Maybe he should’ve gone with Hill after all. “…need some 21st century advice.”

“The hotel pay-per-view is never a good deal, don’t buy anything out of a stranger’s car, and always wear a condom,” Tony says promptly.

“ _What_? No! It’s more like…OK. Hypothetically, what do you do in the 21 st century when your motorcycle breaks down?”

“It’s insulting that you think mine would ever break,” Tony says, but the background noise goes suddenly muffled, and there’s a level of focus in his voice that’s more familiar coming from Iron Man. “Where are you right now? _Hypothetically_.”

“Um, Ohio? I think.”

“ _Ohio he thinks_ ,” Tony scoffs. “Just…don’t go anywhere. I’m picking you up.”

“Tony, I’m hours from New York and I have no idea where I am,” Steve reminds him, suddenly irked that Tony’s not taking this more seriously, even though this reaction had been exactly what he’d expected when he dialed the phone. “How could you possibly ‘pick me up’?”

“Your lack of faith, it just breaks my heart, Rogers. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” And he hangs up to Steve’s continued protests. Steve stares at the phone in his hand and tries to steel himself for the call to Hill.

Eighteen minutes later, Iron Man swoops out of the air to alight on the verge next to Steve’s motorcycle, and…ok, Tony was right. Steve _absolutely_ should have known better.

Tony flips up his faceplate and beams at him.

“Behold the suit that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs!” he laughs, unconcerned as usual that Steve understood only half those words. “Incidentally, I might’ve added some stuff last night. I’ve been looking at footage of the Invasion, thinking about changes.” Something odd happens to Tony’s face then. Nothing so obvious as an actual _expression_ , of course, but there’s a split-second of stillness – like a record skipping on a turntable – as Tony re-syncs his thoughts to his words. “I gotta say, I didn’t anticipate _using_ them so soon. Thought you’d take longer to give up on your little patriotic walkabout.”

Tony makes a complicated gesture with his left gauntlet, which triggers a set of handholds to unfold from the body of the suit with a quiet hiss.

“So when you said ‘pick me up…’” Steve begins slowly.

“Not just in the biblical sense.” Tony smirks at him, and Steve doesn’t even bother trying to disentangle that innuendo. “You comin’ or what, Mad Max?”

“What about my bike?”

“Superhero, super genius, _and_ super rich, remember?” And Steve can tell, even with the suit dampening most of Tony’s subtler body language cues, that he’s practically vibrating with the anticipation of testing out the handholds. “The bike’ll be back in New York by tomorrow. So can we go, or what? I wanna hit up Philly before this cheesesteak place closes for the night.”

Steve can’t help but roll his eyes. _Only Tony would fit a rescue mission around his dinner plans, rather than vice versa_ , Steve thinks, almost fondly. But Tony’s eager smile flickers, and he’s uncharacteristically awkward when he says: “Um, I mean, unless you’re committed to the full sea-to-shining-sea experience?”

“ _God_ no. Get me outta here,” Steve blurts out, and Tony’s grin returns full-force.

They fly up to the roof of Philadelphia Museum of Art and eat cheesesteaks as the sun sets over West Philly. As Steve licks his fingers and pretends to listen to Tony’s rambling monologue about someone named Rocky, he decides that seeing America could look a lot worse.

2.

“You need _what?_ ”

Steve grimaces. He really wishes he’d gotten around to programming _literally any other numbers_ into his phone. His eyes slide around the packed pho restaurant -- he clocks at least seven iPhones taking surreptitious video – and back up to his server. She looms over him and his empty bowl of noodles, and huffs theatrically.

“…a loan,” Steve finally repeats, once it’s become clear that he has no other choice. “I’ll pay it back, really--”

“What happened, Cap, gambling debts finally caught up with you?” Tony asks, and even through the phone, Steve can tell he’s only barely managing to contain his laughter.

“Shut up,” Steve mumbles, glancing up apprehensively at his server, who stares back with narrowed eyes.

“What makes you think I even have the money?” Tony is saying on the phone, and Steve can’t help a snort.

“Superhero, super genius, _and_ super rich, remember?” he drawls in a passable imitation of Tony at his most arrogant. “You gonna help me, or do I have to call Natasha?”

Tony finally gets his wild cackling under control long enough to gasp out: “OK, OK, I’m sorry. How much d’you need? Are you finally buying a place in Manhattan? Or is this more like a ‘being held for ransom’ situation?”

“If I was being held for ransom, wouldn’t I have _led with that?_ ”

“Never in a million years,” Tony retorts promptly. “Oh hell, you’re not being held for ransom, are you?”

Meanwhile, the server’s eyes are widening in alarm at the turn this conversation has taken, and Steve has finally had enough.

“Look, can you come back in a minute?” He tries to keep his voice sounding even and trustworthy, rather than deeply annoyed. “I’m not gonna dine and ditch, honest.”

The server’s frightened retreat does nothing to mask the pointed silence on the other end of the phone.

“Steve _\--_ ” Tony says at last. And Steve can’t help a visible flinch, because Tony is calling him by his _real first name_ , which is a sure sign that the next thirty seconds of his life are about to be truly unbearable _._ “ _Steven._ Are you in a _restaurant_ right now? Steve? _How much money do you need?_ ”

“Sixteen dollars. And thirteen cents,” Steve grinds out, hating his life, hating modernity, hating _everything_.

“ _Six—_ and you called _me_ – oh my God.” Tony is possibly having some sort of asthma attack on the other end of the line. Steve grits his teeth and suffers through a few moments of Tony’s delighted wheezing before he cracks.

“Look, can you get me the money or not?”

“ _Oh my God_ ,” Tony repeats, like someone just gave him a shipment of Vibranium for Christmas. “Don’t go _anywhere_ , or I’ll charge you five million percent interest. On your _loan._ ” Tony makes a noise disturbingly reminiscent of a giggle before the phone goes dead.

Steve sighs and slumps down against his table to wait.

It’s not Iron Man who shows up this time, thankfully. Instead it’s Tony Stark™ - in a perfectly tailored suit and a heart-stopping smile – whose limo pulls up to idle near the curb.

The moment Tony steps in the door, it’s like the whole place just _swoons_ itself into compliance. Somehow – Steve doesn’t entirely follow the trick, because he’s too busy trying to resist its pull himself – Tony teases the angry server until she’s giggling into her card reader, and coaxes all the iPhone-holders into deleting their videos. He manages it all so deftly that the entire restaurant actually _cheers_ once the last holdout surrenders his footage with a scowl. And then Tony follows it all up by grandly paying for everyone’s lunch and sweeping out of the restaurant with Steve bobbing along in his wake.

The entire performance takes a half hour, start-to-finish. _Charisma: A Play in One Act_.

They slide into the back of the limo, and a tightness Steve hadn’t even noticed around Tony’s eyes relaxes in the near-solitude. He’s lost his heart-stopping smile and traded it for a subtler, crooked quirk of his lips that has the opposite effect on Steve’s heart: sending it shuddering in rapid, uneven patterns against his breastbone. Tony leans his head back against the seat rest with a sigh, and Steve almost forgets about the scene in the restaurant, distracted as he is by the line of Tony’s throat against the car’s dark leather.

But then, of course, Tony has to go and open his stupid, gorgeous mouth.

“Please tell me we’re gonna talk about this.” His tone may be casual, but the look he slants over at Steve contains nothing less than unadulterated glee. Steve closes his eyes and groans.

“Is there _any_ way you could be persuaded to forget this?”

“Not a chance, Wolf of Wall Street,” Tony says instantly. “I’ve got sixteen dollars and thirteen cents sunk into this venture. I’m entitled to an investor’s report.”

“Thank goodness Pepper’s your CEO.”

 _“Seriously,_ Cap. I’m practicing _so much_ restraint right now; this is me _restrained_ , so--”

“ _Fine_. Let’s just…get it over with.” Steve closes his eyes again. There’s a heavy silence coming from the other side of the car seat, as if Tony doesn’t even know where to start.

“So. You snapped all your own credit cards. And then…brandished the pieces at your server?”

Steve’s eyes are still closed, but he manages a pretty good wince nevertheless.

“When you say it like that, it just sounds stupid,” he mumbles.

“Okay. In what way doesn’t it sound stupid?” Tony asks, like he genuinely wants to know. Steve forces his eyes open and his shoulders squared. He’s _Captain America_. He can definitely face a mocking Tony Stark head-on. He gives Tony his best Virtuous Patriot chin-tilt, an expression that once intimidated a four-star general into fetching him coffee.

“Well,” Steve huffs. “It was an act of protest, of course.”

Tony must be immune to virtuous patriotism ( _figures_ , Steve thinks sourly), because his mouth twitches, like he’s drawing on a lifetime of considerable media training just to keep up the appearance of a straight face.

“Against…paying for lunch?” Tony finally asks, a bit strangled. He leans forward and puts his elbows on his knees, and Steve finds himself leaning forward to meet him.

“It was a cash-free restaurant! Can you believe that? Imagine being kicked out of a restaurant just because you don’t have a credit card! And as more things go cashless, it’ll just get easier to track people through their purchases—”

“You think anyone going off-the-grid is buying $15 pho in Hell’s Kitchen?” Tony interrupts dryly. Steve falters.

“Well…who are _you_ to say they _can’t_.”

“Tony Stark, nice to meet you.” Tony offers his hand and another one of those devastating grins.

“Right,” Steve blurts out, before he can reign in the impulse. “Just because you can _flirt_ your way out of trouble—”

“Hey! My flirting probably saved you from getting _arrested_ , so before you go all “Occupy” on Saigon Garden, maybe consider the value of diplomacy.” Tony pauses, suddenly distracted by something out the car window, and Steve realizes with an uncomfortable lurch in the pit of his stomach that Tony had been genuinely hurt by the joke. It’s easy to spot when you’re looking for it – the sidelong way that Tony has of approaching his own emotions.

“I know,” Steve answers. He’s momentarily shocked by the sincerity in his own voice, but then, he’s never been much for stealth himself. He reaches out to tap Tony briefly on the knee, to call his attention back from the window. Tony’s head whips around, looking startled and oddly caught-out, and Steve gives him what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “Thank you.”

Tony goes a bit pink and busies himself with a complicated-looking diagram on his tablet.

“Anyway, what’re you talking about?” Tony continues. His voice is light, but he still isn’t quite meeting Steve’s eyes. “You can _definitely_ flirt your way out of trouble. Seriously? Just turn on that naïve _Enchanted_ act, and you’re set.”

“It’s _Virtuous_ — You know what, never mind!”

3.

“How is any of this _my_ fault?” Tony squawks, and even over the phone, Steve can picture vividly the face he’s making, all wide eyes and wounded dignity. Steve smiles and shifts into a more comfortable position on his sofa.

“I specifically remember offering to put you up at Stark Tower,” Tony continues. “You’d never have to work a day in your life! I’d keep you in that 1940s luxury to which you’d become accustomed.”

“Canvas tents and army rations?” Steve asks wryly.

“Mm, only the best for you, baby,” Tony purrs without missing a beat. Steve laughs, and even as he redirects them back to their initial topic, he can’t fight the stupid grin that wants so badly to stay on his face.

“It’s just…how can you, of all people, be advising me to work for SHIELD?” Steve rests the phone against his shoulder and grabs for his drawing pad a little absently. He always finds it easier to pay attention to phone calls when his hands are occupied.

“— _with_ SHIELD. I specifically said: _with_ SHIELD.”

“Fine, _with_ SHIELD,” Steve corrects, rolling his eyes as he starts to sketch clean lines and metal joints.

“And what d’you mean “ _me of all people_?” Just because I’m naturally suspicious, controlling, don’t respect authority—”

“You think I’m not independent enough?” Steve interrupts, hurt.

“What is this, _Ninety-Six Candles_? Calm down, John Hughes, and we’ll have you breaking out of detention in no time. I just think…” Tony pauses. Sighs. “I just think you’ll be happiest with SHIELD.” He’s talking slower than Steve’s ever heard him, slow enough that he’s approximating normal human speeds. Steve can’t tell if it’s because Tony is uncertain about his own reasoning, or about how Steve will react to it. Steve has never known either of those things to concern Tony before.

“I mean, I’m a control freak, sure,” Tony continues. “But put me alone in a lab with a soldering iron? And I’m happy to be the god of that little world until the power runs out. But _you_ \--” Steve makes a little noise of outrage, and Tony rushes on: “C’mon, do you really think you could stand it? Knowing that SHIELD was out there, playing their war games on the world stage, and you _weren’t_ one of the players?”

And that’s…not a bad point, Steve concedes, albeit grudgingly. He shades in a few more details of the Iron Man suit as he considers it. “I don’t have to work within the system, though. You don’t.”

“Well, I have an IQ of 205 and a SHIELD file with “keep out of reach of children” stamped in big red letters on the cover. I’m kind of a special case. Seriously, Cap. As much as it pains me to quash anyone’s teenage rebellion, I think we need you there to keep an eye on things. You might be the only one who can.”

“Dunno if that’s true,” Steve mumbles. He knows Tony’s right – he’s probably known it since they first discussed Fury’s offer several days ago – but he can’t quite bring himself to give up the argument yet. “There’s Natasha and Clint.”

“Oh sure, entrust the moral integrity of the team to Agents Burns and Allen. That’ll end well.”

“Burns and Allen? I used to listen to their radio show,” Steve says absently, mind still on his sketch, but Tony's amused little huff of breath calls his attention back. Steve wonders if Tony had known about Burns and Allen before he met Steve, or if he’d deliberately searched out cultural references from the thirties and forties. He almost resents the rush of strange, desperate gratitude he feels at the thought of either possibility being true.

His pencil digs a little too deep into the outline of Iron Man’s flipped up faceplate, and Steve forces his hand to relax as he retorts: “What, you decided not to go with Sonny and Cher? Mulder and Scully? Don’t hold back on my account, Stark, I can take it.”

“What can I say, I’m a fan of the classics,” Tony chuckles, and it’s a joke – a _joke_ , Steve insists to himself, trying to regulate the sudden racing of his heart through pure stubbornness alone. He busies himself with sketching in Tony’s face.

“Steve,” Tony says into the brief silence, and if the use of his first name didn’t put Steve on alert, that odd hesitance creeping back into Tony’s voice _certainly_ would. “I don’t see why you’re so torn up about this?”

Steve wonders how much it hurt Tony to admit that he couldn’t figure something out. _Probably as much as it’ll hurt to explain it_ , he thinks ruefully.

Steve hesitates, struggling to find the words, watching as the bridge of Tony’s nose, his hair – the humor always lurking in his eyes – comes to life under Steve’s pencil like someone else is drawing it. Tony stays quiet on the other end of the line.

“I hated being a soldier,” Steve finally blurts out, and waits for Tony’s inevitable shock and horror. But Tony just hums lightly under his breath and waits. Steve considers that maybe the only person that admission had shocked had been himself.

“OK, I guess I didn’t _hate_ it.” Wow, he’s already struggling to articulate it properly. “But anything worthwhile I did in the war, it always took two battles: felt like I had to fight through the entire US Army just to reach HYDRA. It was better once I had the Commandos.” Steve swallows, and concentrates on shadowing in Tony’s jaw. “Less complicated, I guess. We had each other, and that—that came first.”

The spike of pain is unexpected, as is the sudden vision of Bucky, falling, slipping just out of reach.

“Steve,” Tony repeats. And for once, his name in Tony’s mouth doesn’t sound dangerous. “Nobody is worried you’d be dividing your loyalty. Not even Fury has that illusion – I’d bet the suit on it. The minute we can’t work with SHIELD anymore, we start coloring outside the lines again.”

Steve glances down at his completed sketch of Tony in the Iron Man armor, staring steadily out at him from the page: head tilted in clear challenge, mouth quirked into a sarcastic shape, suit brimming with power and light.

“Again? I don’t think you’ve ever colored inside a line in your life,” Steve retorts.

“Exactly, I’m basically the Jackson Pollock of international politics. So don’t worry about it, okay? You’re an Avenger. First, foremost, forever. A SHIELD badge won’t change that.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Tony,” Steve says quietly.

“And Rogers? I just had JARVIS access your phone remotely, so my number’s set in your speed dial. Natasha can show you how it works. Call if you ever need a ride, okay?”

Steve feels a sudden rush of affection for Tony’s characteristic blend of cryptic transparency.

“Yeah yeah, Stark. I’ll miss you too.”

4.

Steve’s with Natasha, in a tiny cafe in Bulgaria, when he catches a glimpse of Tony’s face on the screen of a battered TV above the bar. It’s three more hours before he can find a secure enough location to check his laptop, and by then, footage of Tony’s Malibu house sliding into the ocean is plastered over every American news site.

He hits a speed dial number on his phone, and feels some combination of stupid and nauseated when it _obviously_ goes to voicemail. He stares down at the caller ID photo – a selfie of Tony, smirking, as he’d hovered next to the William Penn statue that tops Philadelphia’s City Hall – and hangs up before Tony’s voice on the machine can finish berating him for not sending a text instead.

5.

“So…what would you say if I asked you for another loan?”

“I’d say you still haven’t paid me back from the last one. What is this, _Casino Royale_? Unless you’re being held for ransom somewhere, I’m just not convinced you’re a sound investment. _Are_ you being held for ransom?”

“Um.” Steve hesitates, twirling the cord of a police payphone between his fingers. “In the most technical sense of that word? Yes.”

An hour later, Steve and Sam exit the police station to find Tony slouched against the passenger door of one of his subtler limos, hands in his pockets and sunglasses on.

“Thelma. Louise.” He nods a greeting to each of them in turn.

“You know you didn’t have to come all the way down here,” Steve says, even as he shuffles awkwardly into the car. “Pepper was very…persuasive on the phone. I don’t think they were really gonna make us post bail.”

“Can’t believe they thought you were _lying_ about being Captain America, I mean _look at you_ ,” Sam marvels, following Steve into the backseat.

“ _I_ can’t believe you got Sam arrested and you thought I’d _stay away_ ,” Tony snorts. He slides gracefully into a jump seat directly across from Steve. There’s not quite enough room between them to prevent their legs from tangling together, and Steve’s every attempt to extricate himself only seems to entwine them further. He’s mortified to feel his face going red.

“Why are you assuming it was my fault and not Sam’s?” Steve blurts out as Happy pulls away from the curb. The distraction works. Tony snorts and shakes his head at Sam, a commiserating “can you believe him?” gesture. Sam snickers in return, while Steve proceeds to regret all his life choices.

“Yeah, maybe because I’ve _met_ you?” Tony finally says.

“Most people wouldn’t immediately suspect Captain America of a crime, you know,” Steve can’t help but mumble.

“Dunno Cap, we got several of New York’s finest over there who beg to differ.”

“Did Pepper tell you the story yet?” Sam interjects, and Steve shoots him a look of deep betrayal. Sam just grins back.

“No spoilers. I wanted the unvarnished performance, baby.” Tony waggles his eyebrows. Steve groans and bumps his forehead several times against the car window.

“Well--” Sam begins with great relish, but Tony makes such a violent shushing gesture that he promptly snaps his mouth shut again. Tony then proceeds to conjure a tumbler, a bottle of whiskey, and two perfectly formed ice cubes from somewhere in the depths of the car, juggling all of them until he’s got a drink in his hand. And then he leans back in his seat, closes his eyes, and lets an expression of pure bliss settle over his face.

“Please. Continue.”

Really, Steve reflects, his first mistake had been getting into the car at all.

“Tony--” he starts, but Tony waves at him with the hand that isn’t holding the whiskey.

“Not your turn to talk, Shawshank.”

“Who?”

“You and Romanov made it through four seasons of _Friends_ while you were on that mission in Panama, but you’ve never heard of _The Shawshank Redemption_? Modernity truly has failed you.”

Sam, who’s now openly laughing, finally manages to say: “So Steve got into a bar fight…”

Tony waves him on, like this much is obvious.

“…Because he was hustling pool,” Sam continues, and _that_ makes Tony’s eyes fly open. The look he directs at Steve then is one of such unabashed delight – as though Steve is endlessly fascinating and Tony can’t wait to see what he does next – that Steve can’t help but hunch his shoulders and stare down at his hands in his lap. He has no idea what he’s done to deserve _that_ kind of interest from Tony Stark, and even less idea how to keep it.

“That’s a misrepresentation—” he starts awkwardly, just as Tony says: “ _You can hustle pool_?”

“OK, look—”

“No, wait, let me clarify. You can hustle pool _and I’m only finding out about it now_? Seriously?”

“Tony, I literally have superhuman hand-eye coordination, of course I’m good at pool.” Steve pauses to allow for Tony’s anticipated eye-roll, before adding with a slight smirk: “Also, back in Brooklyn, nobody really expected a sickly kid like me to know how to play. So when Buck ‘n’ I needed a quarter for the movies, we’d go down to the pool hall and take bets.”

“Wow, when I wanted to see movies as a kid, all I did was hack Disney.” Tony shakes his head, genuinely dismayed that he hadn’t incorporated petty gambling into his teenage life of cyber-crime.

“Can I go back to prison? Is that an option?” Sam mumbles, probably too quietly for Tony to hear, but Steve’s serum-enhanced hearing picks it up just _fine_.

“So that’s how I knew they were cheating, at the bar today. It’s not like hustling’s changed much in the last seventy years. And if they challenged me to a game…what was I supposed to do?”

“What Steve fails to disclose is that he systematically and _spectacularly_ lost to every pool player in that bar until he’d caught their attention. It was like an extremely determined, muscular honeypot.”

Tony darts an odd glance at Steve before looking away again just as quickly.

“They were cheating!” Steve feels compelled to remind them both.

“ _You cheated back_!”

“They were stealing from a bunch of tourists and kids, what else was I supposed to do! They'd never have gotten the money back otherwise.”

Tony stares at him, mouth hanging slightly open. Steve shifts in his seat. And then, very deliberately, Tony throws back his entire tumbler of whiskey, sets it into the cup-holder at his elbow, and begins to laugh.

“Gotta admit, that’s quite the novel interpretation of ‘truth, justice, and the American way.’”

“Wrong superhero, not fictional,” Steve grouses.

“Not to mention?” Sam adds, now ignoring Steve entirely. “Cheating some dudes out of their money with trickery and superior force is pretty much the _definition_ of ‘the American way.’”

“You know, that’s a good point.” Tony peers at Sam as though seeing him for the first time. He turns to Steve and points his thumb in Sam’s direction. “I like him, why don’t you ever let us hang out?”

“Give me a little credit for self-preservation,” Steve retorts dryly, which only makes Tony start laughing again. Steve pouts and sinks lower into his seat. He doesn’t feel at all guilty when Tony’s shin gets kicked in the process.

“So _that_ ,” Sam concludes with a flourish, “is how Captain America got arrested. Hey, can we stop for pizza on the way home?”

6.

“Could do with an extraction any time, Iron Man.”

“So, quick question, did that warehouse just _explode_?”

“Um. In the most technical sense of the word?”

“Ugh, they're totally gonna blame me, and do you know how much money I've already lost to Bruce's Destruction of Property Jar? A lot, Cap, it's-”

7.

Steve’s got his head tipped back against a brick wall, the phone on speaker in his lap, and in some distant, fuzzy way, he’s impressed that he managed to make his phone work at all. It’s still only about a fifty-fifty success rate while he’s _sober_.

“Wait, you’re _drunk_?” Tony’s voice comes through the phone, sounding two parts scandalized and one part delighted, and – oh, yeah. He’d called Tony. And might possibly be speaking aloud.

Steve ponders all this for a very long time before saying (quite cunningly he thinks): “Maybe?”

There’s a sound on the phone that might be a sigh or might be a laugh. Steve frowns.

There’s something Tony hasn’t been telling him. Steve can hear the strange ambiguity in moments like this: moments where Tony hesitates, tempering his reactions when he used to barrel through them full speed ahead. Steve wonders if it has to do with Ultron, but whatever it is, Tony has refused to talk about it, exhibiting levels of avoidance that would almost be impressive -- if they didn’t give Steve such vivid flashbacks of himself, right after the Battle of New York, stuck in Ohio and watching his best chance of running from his problems _literally_ burst into flames.

Suddenly, like a switch has flipped, Steve feels himself going from pleasant-and-floaty drunk to alone-in-an-alley drunk.

He really hopes he’s not still talking out loud.

“Can you maybe send a car?” Steve does manage to say, and hates his own voice for how small it suddenly sounds.

There’s a brief pause on the other end of the line, and then Tony says, “Always, Cap,” in such a familiar, fond tone that Steve wonders if he hasn’t been imagining the strain between them after all.

Time goes a little funny after that, because it feels like when Steve next looks up, it’s to see an SUV parked in front of him and Happy rolling down the driver’s side window.

“Need a hand?”

“No, no,” Steve insists, struggling gamely to his feet. He pulls open the car door and stops, swaying slightly, at the sight of Tony sprawled in the back seat. He’s pale and messy-haired and wearing a pair of soft, gray sweatpants that Steve has never seen him wear before. Steve doesn’t _think_ alcohol is supposed to cause you to hallucinate, but it’s not like he’s been drunk in the 21 st century before. Maybe this is another fun modernization that nobody thought to clue Steve in on.

And then Tony leans over the seats to tug Steve into the car by the hem of his shirt. So, probably real.

“Alright, Rogers. I have about a million questions, but let’s start with: how are you drunk right now?”

“Something Asgardian. Maybe wasn’t only alcohol,” Steve says. He manages to fold himself into the backseat, but he’s finding it harder than usual to stay upright. So the next time the car turns and Steve lists, he lets himself tilt all the way onto Tony’s shoulder. It’s very solid – and everything else has gone a bit wobbly – so it only seems prudent to stay there and snuggle in. Tony goes very still beneath him, but Steve just makes a disgruntled noise and burrows more aggressively.

His next words are muffled by the fabric of Tony’s worn T-shirt. “Had some before I left, but might’ve…miscalculated. Forgot how it worked, 's been so long.”

“You’re telling me Captain America _pregamed_?”

Steve nods sleepily. “Also tequila. Lotsa tequila. People kept buying me shots.”

“I _bet_ they did.” Steve considers being offended, but Tony’s voice is as warm as the arm he’s shifting to wrap around Steve’s back, and so Steve decides against it.

“But that does segue nicely into my next question, which is…you _did_ know that was a gay bar, right?”

And _now_ Steve’s offended. “I’m 97, not an _idiot_ ,” he says, opening his eyes into slits to glare up at Tony. “That was the whole _point_.”

“…Oh.” There’s an odd tone to it, and Steve wills himself to become about 10% more sober than he is currently, because that’s not…the best response he’s ever gotten to coming out.

“You’re not gonna be terrible about this, right?” Steve asks, trying to get a good look at Tony’s face. It’s difficult because he’s still tucked into Tony’s side, so all he can really see of Tony’s face is his chin, and as Steve is coming to realize, a chin is just not an effective signal of someone’s levels of homophobic panic.

“No.” Tony laughs, but there’s still something _off_ about the sound. “For one thing, that would be remarkably hypocritical, and I guess you’ve never Googled me, which is…probably a very good thing, actually, keep up the good work on that one. It’s just – Steve, you were picking someone up at a _bar_?” If Steve wasn’t quite so drunk, he’d think Tony sounded hurt, but that doesn’t make any sense. The alcohol must be muddling things up.

“You think the 21st century invented gay bars? You sweet summer child.”

“What does that even mean, is this another Tumblr thing? I’m having FRIDAY revoke your Internet privileges. How do you even know how to use Tumblr when I’ve had to explain the autocorrect on your phone _seven separate times_?”

Steve thinks about it.

“Prob’ly the patriarchy,” he concludes with a satisfied yawn against Tony’s collarbone. The last thirty seconds of this conversation wend their way slowly through his brain. “And I wasn’t _picking anyone up_. You sound like Natasha. I don’t just want _anyone_ , I— _fuck_.”

Steve lifts his head off Tony’s shoulder, the better to enjoy the shock in Tony’s wide dark eyes.

“I do actually know the word for it,” Steve tells him, amused in spite of himself. And maybe if Steve were a little drunker – or if his face weren’t quite so close to Tony’s already – he’d miss the expression of pure _want_ that flickers across Tony’s face then, like it doesn’t quite know where to land.

“Oh,” Steve says, very quietly. Tony’s expression transitions rapidly from desire, through hasty repression, and directly into alarm. He starts to pull back, presumably to place some distance between them, but that is literally the _last_ thing Steve wants, so the clear solution is to lean forward and kiss him.

Steve doesn’t quite stick the landing – he kind of bounces against the corner of Tony’s mouth before finally getting it right, but Tony’s lips are soft against Steve’s, and already parted slightly, in surprise or possibly a warning. Steve makes a pleased hum and presses closer against the warmth of Tony’s body, while Tony exhales a gust of breath that could almost be a laugh before gently pushing Steve away by the shoulders.

“But you—” Steve starts, trying to understand the expression on Tony’s face, but too easily distracted by his mouth, which is where Steve’s mouth has _just been_. Wow. He blinks several times.

“Yeah, _me._ ” Tony echoes, his smile twisting into something sardonic, even as his steady gaze on Steve never wavers.

“No, but I— _this_ ,” Steve insists, trying to push past the floaty sensations in his brain to catch what he _knows_ are important thoughts that he needs to communicate, preferably out loud, so that Tony will agree to kiss him some more. “I want to.”

“Steve,” Tony begins, and Steve _loves_ the way Tony says his name, he _loves_ it, the sounds fit better in Tony’s mouth than anywhere else. Even now, when they also sound so worn and ragged. “Listen, I’m going to get you home and into bed, and then _I’m_ going to go home. And if, in the morning, you still want—” Another slight huff of maybe-laughter. “Yeah, well. We’ll talk in the morning. OK?”

Oh, his _bed_ , Steve had forgotten about the concept of beds.

“We’ll talk in the morning?” Steve yawns, and somehow his head is back on Tony’s shoulder. He doesn’t remember putting it there. “And then we can—I _do_ want—” he tries to insist, even as his eyes slide closed, because that seems crucial for Tony to understand.

“I know you do,” Tony soothes, and Steve falls asleep to the rhythms of the car on the pavement and Tony’s fingers lightly stroking back his hair.

8.

Steve wakes up the next morning with the kind of headache he hasn’t felt in seventy years, and an odd sense of something out-of-balance, like he’s only wearing one sock and his body is still waiting for his mind to notice it.

He has a vague memory of calling Tony the night before – a fact that his cellphone confirms – and he winces with a combination of the sunlight, and anticipation of the intense bout of teasing he’s probably doomed to endure. He wishes he could even remember what he’d said, so he’d have _some_ idea of what to expect, but the last thing he remembers clearly is Happy with a car. Unwilling to leave their next conversation until an Avengers emergency -- because Tony really _should_ keep the coms clear, and this will only spur him to greater, more embarrassing heights – Steve presses redial and waits for death to take him.

“Steve?”

Steve frowns. He’d been expecting at least ten obscure cultural references and innuendos right off the bat, and had certainly _not_ been expecting the odd, almost breathy way Tony says his name.

“Sorry, were you in the middle of something?”

“What? No! I’ve never been less in the middle of anything in my life. More of a beginning and ends kind of person, you know, just very _unmiddling_ in general.”

“O-kay?” It’s very possible that Tony hasn’t slept since he made Happy go retrieve Steve. Either that, or he’s accidentally discovered time travel and thinks Steve will disapprove. Maybe both. “Just don’t use yourself as a test subject again, please.” _There. That should cover it, whatever it is_. “Anyway, I’m calling about last night.”

There’s a metallic crash on the other end of the line, and then an excited whirring that Steve recognizes as one of the bots.

“Tony? Are you on fire right now?”

“ _No_ , Jesus, it’s nothing, it didn’t work anyway. So…last night?”

Steve waits, but Tony doesn’t seem inclined to say anything else. Either he’s planning to draw this out, or something in his workshop has just rendered him unconscious. Steve sets his jaw and presses on.

“Well, yeah, I know I acted like an idiot – figured I’d give you a free chance to make fun of me. Call it a ‘thank you’ for getting me home.”

The silence on the other end of the line is so acute, Steve briefly worries that Tony really _is_ unconscious.

“Yeah, ‘course, never a problem, Cap,” is what Tony finally says. Briskly.

 _Oh no, this is bad_. Because Steve had assumed he’d done something _medium-level_ embarrassing on the phone last night, like rant about partisan gerrymandering or, or… _cry_. He hadn’t even considered all the high-level embarrassing things that could’ve happened. Like telling Tony who he’d been trying to _banish from his stupid head_ by going out to that bar last night.

But given Tony’s awkward attempts to dismiss the subject now, Steve can only conclude that whatever happened was embarrassment of the highest level.

“Look, just…don’t mention it to the team,” he blurts out desperately. It’s the only thing he can think to say that’s not “exactly _how_ experimental is your memory-altering tech?”

“It’s not a big deal,” Steve continues. “And it’s not gonna be a _problem_ — I was _very drunk_ , so it’s not like it was— But. I don’t want to add more pressure on the team right now, we’re still figuring out how things’ll work with Vision and Wanda, and I’m not saying _forget it_ , because you never forget _anything_ , but—”

“It’s fine. Already forgotten.” Tony’s quiet voice interrupts his increasingly panicked monologue.

“…Oh. Well. Alright.” Steve can’t tell if he should be grateful or tremendously hurt by the easy way that Tony dismisses what was presumably a very heartfelt confession of Steve's feelings for him. Especially considering that Tony is usually so unwilling to drop an issue, he'd once monologued for forty-five minutes about all the scientific inconsistencies in _The Matrix_ – a series of movies that he'd last seen fifteen years ago – just because Clint had mentioned offhand that he liked the special effects.

“Thank y--”

“Actually,” Tony cuts in. “I should really get back to some tests I have running. Those flux capacitors, you know, not very stable. Can’t leave them alone for too long.”

“Yeah, of course. And I know you’re headed to MIT tomorrow morning for that scholarship thing, but I’ll…talk to you when you get back?” Steve doesn’t know whether it’s Tony’s shiftiness – is a flux capacitor even a _thing?_ – or just a weird premonition, but he feels abruptly like they _won’t_ talk when Tony returns from MIT. That this is Steve’s best chance to repair things, and he’s about to lose it. But how could he push Tony for anything right now?

Before Steve can figure out whether it’s better to keep Tony on the phone or let him go, Tony decides for them both by saying, “Sure thing, Cap” almost absently, like his mind’s already jumped to something else. And then the line goes dead.

9.

“When did I stop being your first call? _That’s_ what I still can’t figure out.”

“Wha— _Tony_?”

The vibrating phone had woken Steve from a dead sleep, but he’d pulled it out from under his pillow and had it pressed to his ear before he’d even realized it was ringing. He’d _told_ Clint it made tactical sense to keep the phone so close while he slept, and now he’s being proven right. It definitely had nothing to do with the strange tendrils of anxiety that keep him awake unless he can feel the phone with his own hands.

“I get the rest, I really do--” Tony’s voice sounds strange, vowels clipped like he’s trying to barrel through the words as efficiently as possible.

“Are you OK?”

“Everything you said in your bullshit letter—”

“Has something happened?”

“—But that’s the one thing I don’t get.”

“Are you _drunk_?”

Steve does a quick time zone calculation in his head. He sincerely hopes Tony isn’t drunk right now.

“Can’t you just fucking—” Tony’s voice cracks, and it’s like all the kinetic energy drains right out of it. “Can you just…answer the question? Just this one—this one question?”

Maybe it’s the fact that Steve’s still groggy, but an honest answer slips out before he’s thought about it. “This phone goes both ways, Tony. You’re still my first call.”

Tony’s laugh is brittle. “Oh right, so I must’ve forgotten all those long updates on Bucky Watch 2016.”

“You’re calling about Bucky?” Steve can’t shake the feeling that he’s playing catch-up on this whole conversation.

“Am I calling about--” Steve wouldn’t have thought Tony Stark could actually be _speechless_ with anger, and now he wishes he didn’t have to know how it sounded. “I’m calling about _you_.”

“You think I didn’t trust you with Bucky?” Steve blurts out, and then winces, because blunt statements tend to send Tony into a full-blown deflection spiral.

But Tony shocks him with the dull way that he just says, “I understand why.”

“You… _really don’t_ ,” is all Steve can manage in return, because he’s too busy reexamining everything from this new angle. Sure, it’s obvious _now_ , but to Steve, the trajectory of their fraying relationship had always seemed so clear: Tony pulling back since Ultron, Tony trusting Steve less and less, Tony acting like Steve’s judgment was flawed when it came to Bucky and the Accords,  _Tony_ maneuvering circumstances until Steve’s best chance to fix things – to protect Tony and Bucky both – had been to keep Tony in the dark.

Steve had continued to believe that he could brazen it all out and have Bucky exonerated before anything happened between him and Tony that was truly unforgivable. And he knows, too late, he’d been as naïve as Tony’d once accused him of being. Steve had assumed that Tony’s acceptance of the Accords and wariness about Bucky had been his need for control manifesting itself once again, just another one of those moments where Tony overdoes things. Steve had missed the real emotional sleight of hand at work. Tony had been scared. And in his own Tonyish way, he’d been trying his best to let Steve see it.

“Remember what I said when you joined SHIELD?” Tony interrupts Steve’s prolonged state of shock. “That you were--”

“--An Avenger: first, foremost, forever. Of course I remember.”

“But you never really believed it. Did you? Even then.” He sounds tired as he says it – tired and so certain. And suddenly, unfairly, Steve is _furious_ at him for that.

“There’s only one person who could make me leave the Avengers, and it was never Bucky,” he snaps before he can think better of it.

The ensuing silence is long and terrible.

“I—” Tony starts, and Steve  _hates_ the slight wobble in his voice.

“Wait, no, that isn’t--” he rushes to say, before he stalls, and has to take a deep breath to start again. “I keep trying to…do the right thing, with you, but somehow I keep screwing it up. I only meant. I wanted you to be safe, and I wanted you to keep the Avengers, and it seemed like I was just making that harder for you. I couldn’t have left for anything less. That’s all I—um.”

“Right,” Tony finally says, somewhere between hurt and disbelieving. “You said, in the letter. You didn’t want me to be _alone_.” There’s a bitterness to the way he draws out that last word. “It’s a nice theory, I guess. Protecting me, keeping secrets, making things _easier_. But there was a tiny flaw in your logic, Cap. Actually, no. Your logic _sucks_ , because _everything_ about this would’ve been easier if you were just _here_. Screw the rest. We could’ve handled it, the two of us, we could’ve—”

And _wow_ this hurts to hear. The plaintiveness in Tony’s voice, as much as the words themselves, because that _had_ been what Steve wanted, and how could Tony doubt it? He knew how Steve felt, he _knew_ —

“Kinda seemed like you didn’t want me to stick around,” Steve finally manages to say, slowly, physically unable to talk more directly about Siberia than that.

“But after that night at the bar—” Tony blurts out. There’s another abrupt silence on the other end of the phone. It’s abundantly clear that this was something Tony had never meant to discuss. Steve can picture the exact look on his face, could draw it from memory: frustration in the press of Tony’s lips together, anxiety in the crinkles of his eyes. Just the smallest of details, really, but clear enough to someone who’s learned to look for them.

And suddenly it’s like Steve has finally woken up. It’s like the sun breaking through the clouds of this conversation, and Steve thanks God for all the past phone calls that have trained him in Tony Stark’s stupid way of talking about feelings, because with a flash of brilliant insight, Steve _gets it_. What he thinks Tony might be trying to say.

“Okay,” Steve starts, after taking a deep breath for courage. “I don’t know exactly what I said that night on the phone, but—”

“What you _said_?” Tony interrupts sharply, and Steve can almost hear the servos of Tony’s brain whirring into life. “Steve. What do you actually remember?”

“Um? I called you, and I think I asked you to send a car? I dunno, Tony. It was a while ago, and I was pretty drunk. Can we just—”

“I didn’t just send a car, I sent- I came-  _damn it_.”

Oh no, Tony was _stuttering._ Which means Steve’s weird Tony Sense had actually been _right_. Honestly, out of a very long list, this might be Steve’s most terrifying superpower yet.

“Alright…” Steve starts, very slowly. “You came to pick me up, and clearly something happened between us. What was it?”

“I didn’t kiss you back,” Tony rushes to say, like it’s something he’s been holding onto for a while, and Steve’s brain promptly spirals into pure panic, because _what_. “You were really out of it. I don’t think you even knew what you were doing. I _swear_ , Steve, all I did was say, ‘Call me tomorrow.’”

And now the buzz of panic has shifted into something sicker and infinitely more horrible.

“And I did call you,” Steve picks up the thread of story slowly, reluctantly. “And I said—Oh _God_ , Tony, I said—”

“It’s fine,” Tony says, and it’s so tremendously unconvincing that Steve can feel his own heart breaking from the sound of it.

“It’s the farthest thing from fine! This whole time, you’ve thought that I wanted to forget about kissing you? That – that – I wanted to keep it a _secret_? Oh.”

Tony lets out a strangled laugh. “Can you blame me for believing that one?”

“No,” Steve says quietly, and wonders if the serum is powerful enough to keep him from throwing up this time. Somehow he doubts it. “It’s possible we got too comfortable with secrets, you and I.”

He doesn’t mean it to be a pointed statement, but Tony goes quiet on the other end of the line. It’s not as awful a silence anymore. More like thoughtful, if Steve had to name it.

“I’m sorry,” Tony finally says, and Steve blinks. Wonders if it would be in bad taste to ask Tony to repeat that. “I should’ve come to you first with the Accords. And Wanda.”

“Tony, I think we both know there was _a lot_ I should’ve come to you first about,” Steve interjects wryly, but Tony’s clearly not finished.

“I just got used to it. You know? The whole _thing_ we had going on: Steve Rogers charges into trouble, and Tony Stark gets him out of it. But Steve, the things I’ve done – the things _I’d do_ – just to keep you out of trouble? They’re…not good things. And I know you can handle trouble yourself, _I know it_ , so then there’s just me, like an _idiot_ \--”

“I can’t,” Steve interrupts, something settling heavily in the pit of his stomach that feels too much like longing. “I mean, sure, when you put it like that, maybe our _thing_ wasn’t very fair, to either of us. But seriously _,_ Tony, like I don’t want it to be that simple? I _wish_ you could just…come pick me up, like my bike’s broken down again.”

“I could--”

“ _No_. Jesus Christ, Stark, if I find out you’ve put a single finger on that bike--”

“I meant--”

“Human _or_ robotic—”

“Why can’t I?”

“…What?”

“Steve, _why can’t I_?”

There’s a sound outside – an achingly familiar one – and Steve stumbles out the door of their safe house to see Iron Man alighting on the front lawn, his helmet already retracting. Tony’s face looks thinner and too pale, and his dark curls are wilder than usual, but Steve could draw the shape of that grin in his sleep.

“You--”

“Planted a tracker on your uniform back in the bunker, when it looked like things were going south for us. Who did you think you were _talking_ to?”

Steve can’t help it – he starts to laugh. And some tension in Tony’s face eases at the sound.

“I’m just glad you didn’t ditch any of your stars or stripes along the way,” Tony mutters, and then winces at the slightly bitter way it comes out. It’s enough to sober Steve immediately.

He catches Tony’s eyes, and the fragility he can see in them has Steve almost afraid to blink. “I’m sorry,” Steve says, and hopes Tony understands just how much he means it.

“It’s fine if you don’t--” Tony begins, squaring his jaw, looking simultaneously so delighted to see him, and also so miserable, that Steve can’t help the small noise of frustration he makes, nor the way he stalks over to Tony and grips his head firmly in both hands, his palms sliding against Tony’s jaw.

“Tony,” Steve says in a low voice, and enjoys the way Tony’s eyes go wide at the sound. “Believe me. I really, _really_ do.”

Steve still doesn’t remember the first time they kissed, but he can’t imagine it was better than this: the quiet, shocked noise Tony makes when Steve presses their lips together, and the way Steve can feel, even through the suit, the moment Tony’s whole body melts into the kiss. Tony’s hands come up to rest lightly against Steve’s waist and at the curve of his neck, and his mouth parts on a sigh. Steve deepens the kiss, and it must be enough to rouse Tony from his dazed stupor, because his hands tighten and he does something with his tongue that shouldn’t be _allowed_ , and suddenly Steve’s the one gasping and hanging onto Tony’s metal shoulders just to stay upright.

He pulls back, breathing heavily, to find that Tony’s hair looks even more disastrous than it had when he landed, his face is flooded with color and most importantly, that sense of barely contained energy is thrumming through him once more. Steve hadn’t seen it in so long – longer even than the time they’d spent apart.

“Okay, so head’s up, when we get back to the compound, we’re staying in bed for a week. That’s the plan, it’s an inspired plan, and any budding supervillians will just have to learn to play with the B Team until I get tired of eating all my meals off your body. I’ve already put in an order with FRIDAY – we’re talking _cases_ of whipped cream--” Tony cuts himself off as abruptly as he started talking, and somehow manages to glance at Steve sidelong while being only an inch away from his nose. He opens his mouth, hesitates, and then says: “I mean. Unless you were committed to the full fugitive-from-justice experience?”

“ _God_ no. Take me home.”

10.

“Seriously, Steve? You’re seriously—this is really what we’re doing?”

“Well, since _you’re_ still somewhere over New Jersey, _we’re_ not doing anything,” Steve drawls, trying his best to keep the laughter out of his voice. “What _I’m_ doing is lying on our bed, completely naked, and trying not to – _mm_ – come before you get here. Oh _God,_ that feels good.”

Steve wonders whether the theatrical sex noises are a bit too obvious, but Tony just mumbles “Jesus Christ” and proceeds to have a whispered but intense argument with FRIDAY. Steve can only hear about one out of every four words of it, but he’s fully capable of inferring the rest.

“I take it there's an update on your ETA?” he asks, leaning back against the riot of pillows that Tony favors for sleeping, one hand holding his phone and the other resting behind his head.

“94 seconds,” FRIDAY informs him promptly, and Steve grins. Thirty seconds ago, it’d been five minutes.

“Told you this suit could reach Mach 4 – _ohshit was that a goose?_ – in an emergency,” Tony pants.

“Huh, sounds to me like you’ve been exploiting Avengers resources, Iron Man.”

“Oh trust me, Cap, I’m about to exploit them _thoroughly_ ,” Tony vows, and that’s when Steve hears the repulsors in the distance.

Tony hits the balcony outside their bedroom with a thump and a stumble, and Steve can’t help but feel smug at the tell. He can’t remember the last time Tony botched a landing quite that badly. Before the armor has even finished folding off his body, Tony is making for Steve on the bed, a dangerous gleam in his dark eyes that has Steve shivering in anticipation.

They crash together in a tangle of mouths and hands, Tony only half-on the bed and Steve falling half-off it. Tony’s thigh is pressed hot against Steve’s, and his fingers are rough on Steve’s cheeks, holding him still for a kiss in a nonverbal assertion of control that prompts Steve to tug at a curl of Tony’s hair in retaliation. Tony moans and then immediately slurs “shuttup” against Steve’s mouth. Steve starts to grin, and Tony pulls back to give him a dire glare.

“I was insanely hard. On C-SPAN. Low blow, Rogers.”

“Hm, not yet.”

There’s a beat of silence as Steve grins and Tony works through the pun, before Tony groans, nipping at Steve’s bottom lip in reproach.

“I might be a bad influence on you,” Tony mumbles, and then soothes the sting of the bite and the words, both, with a soft swipe of his tongue. Steve hums. In one practiced movement, he flips them both over and holds Tony still with the weight of his own body. He ducks his head for a kiss at the same time as he grinds his hips down, _hard,_ and at the perfect angle to have Tony arching up to meet him.

When he pulls back for air, Tony’s panting a bit, eyes dark with lust, a rosy flush on his cheeks.

“Really, a terrible influence,” Tony murmurs. His hands slip down to palm Steve’s ass, and Steve rewards his ingenuity with another kiss, which of course only manages to distract Tony from his usual Arousal Monologue for a few seconds at best.

“Y’know, on the phone, I was told very clearly that there would be no clothes. And then, what do I find when I get home? _Clothes_ , Steve. _So many clothes_. It was unprincipled. It was--” Tony’s complaints stutter to a halt as Steve obliges him by pulling his shirt off and tossing it onto the floor.

“It was highly misleading. I feel misled,” Tony continues to object, much weaker than before, and Steve shoots him a grin before starting to work on the buttons of Tony’s own shirt.

“We tacticians prefer to call it _added incentive_.” Steve slithers down Tony's body to start on his belt, which he slides off as obnoxiously slowly as he thinks he can get away with. Tony’s narrowed eyes suggest imminent retaliation.

“That’s funny, cuz we liars prefer to call a _lie_.”

Steve forces himself to look away from the mouthwatering outline of Tony’s cock in a pair of scarlet silk boxers, since he needs to make sure Tony understands how thoroughly affronted he is. “I’m Captain America, I don’t _lie_. I stand for truth…” He dips down again to press a light kiss to the tip of Tony’s cock.

“And justice…” He pushes Tony’s pants and boxers down, and then moves to the spot just under the head of Tony’s cock that always makes him gasp, quietly, like he’s still vaguely shocked by his own reactions. Tonight is no exception, and Steve grins to himself before taking Tony properly into his mouth.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Tony moans, shuddering as he slides a hand through the short hairs at the base of Steve’s neck, the other clutching at one of his ever-present pillows. Steve lifts his head.

“Mm, and the American way,” Steve agrees smugly. Tony’s eyes narrow even further.

“Wrong superhero, sweetheart.” He pulls Steve towards him like he wants a kiss, and then, once Steve is leaning over him, flips them both with a move that Steve is pretty sure comes from Natasha. Steve, laughing, allows it. “And you didn’t have any ethical quandaries about interrupting a meeting with the UN Ambassador to text me a picture of you, fucking yourself with a dildo in this very bed, and the caption ‘This could’ve been you.’”

“That was the pure and honest truth,” Steve insists, doing the best version of the Virtuous Patriot look a man can do when his boyfriend is ruthlessly divesting him of his pants. “And _just-ly_ deserved.”

“Yeah? What about the American way?”

Steve gives Tony an innocent grin that fractures into bliss when Tony gets a hand around him, deft and calloused and just this side of too rough. In other words, _perfect_.

“Tony, I need--” Steve gasps.

“Oh no, I missed my chance, remember? Your photos made that _very_ clear,” Tony teases, as his hand sets a tight, merciless pace. Steve groans and – judging by the faint tearing sound -- disembowels a pillow.

“So _that’s_ why you have eight hundred of these,” he slurs. He tugs dizzily at Tony, who tips onto Steve’s chest and lets Steve maneuver them both until their cocks are aligned and one of Steve’s hands is wrapped around them. Tony’s body is pure heat against him. His hips are picking up Steve’s rhythm, a little shuddery like he’s already starting to lose control. He tucks his face into Steve’s neck so that his beard scratches the sensitive skin at Steve’s throat, and mumbles something that might be Italian or might be math.

Steve tightens his hand a bit and lets his thumb swipe the head of Tony’s cock on his next upstroke, and then murmurs, “This would be the American way” into Tony’s dark hair.

Tony comes laughing.

He collapses a little wheezily against Steve’s chest, and it only takes a few more thrusts into the damp curve of Tony’s hip before Steve is coming as well, overwhelmed by the feeling of Tony’s skin, the familiar smell of his cologne, the timbre of Tony’s voice as he continues to giggle into Steve’s collarbone.

Tony rolls over and flops into the heart of his pillow-hoard. Steve blinks dazedly up at the ceiling of their bedroom, and assumes that Tony is doing much the same, spread out next to him.

“ _Fuck_ I missed you.” Tony suddenly sounds exhausted. Steve turns his head. Tony’s eyes are closed, and the smudges underneath might be shadows or might be a result of too many sleepless nights. Steve doesn’t need to be a genius to know which is the more likely option. But Tony’s mouth is soft and relaxed – parted a bit as he breathes steadily – and Steve thinks that’s a start. He reaches out to brush against Tony’s fingers with his own, and Tony’s lips tilt up into a smile.

“And I know you missed me,” Tony adds, squinting his eyes open to slant a teasing look at Steve.

“How could you possibly know that?”

“ _Fifty-nine texts_ , Steve. And a phone call that I’m pretty sure violated several FAA regulations.” Tony’s expression has gone smug, and it should be supremely irritating – Tony is always at his most irritating when he’s right – but now, Steve can’t help but return Tony’s smile.

“It was the kids who missed you most. They’ve been completely out of control without you around to lay down the law.”

“Mm, that’s me. The figure of authority in this relationship.” Tony rolls toward Steve with a grin, giving him a slightly off-target kiss and then staying there, head resting against Steve’s shoulder. “What’re they up to, anyway? They asleep?”

“Doubtful. Last I checked, Bucky’d challenged Thor to a drinking contest, Scott had a betting pool going, and I think Natasha was offering to, quote, “be his muscle?” Actually, come to think of it, they might all be dead.”

“Here’s hoping,” Tony agrees absently. He yawns, blinks, and then suddenly he’s shooting up from the bed, nearly braining himself on Steve’s chin in the process. “Oh crap, I forgot--” Steve sits up as well, alarmed, so he’s moderately prepared to catch the foil-wrapped bundle that comes hurtling towards his head.

“Stopped in Philly on my way home from DC,” Tony says, in a familiar, pseudo-casual tone. Steve looks up from the slightly squashed cheesesteak in his lap to Tony, bright-eyed and grinning like he can’t contain it. Steve stuffs a bite of cheesesteak into his mouth so he doesn’t say something _utterly_ embarrassing, but Tony seems to get it anyway, if the way his grin widens and he clambers back into bed is any indication. He nudges aggressively until Steve consents to put an arm around his shoulders, which makes the sandwich-eating quite fraught, but Steve can’t find it in himself to mind.

So they eat cheesesteaks one-handed amidst their rumpled sheets. Steve licks his fingers and pretends to listen to Tony’s rambling story about a Senator, a missing zoo penguin, and a misunderstanding with the DC Park Police, and thinks that love could be a lot worse.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://rainbowninja.tumblr.com), I'm always excited to talk about Avengery things! Also, I made an simple little fic post [here](http://rainbowninja.tumblr.com/post/172640748775/even-my-phone-misses-your-call-10k-steve-makes) but I'm proud of it :)


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